Ukraine's geography and destiny

The United States and its European allies can do many things on behalf of Ukraine in its dispute with Russia. They can impose economic sanctions, provide economic and military assistance, increase defense outlays and warn Russian President Vladimir Putin of the dangers of additional aggression. What they can't change is the fact that Ukraine shares a long and vulnerable border with Russia.

That is, the U.S. and its allies can't move Ukraine - or, for that matter, Russia.

Ukraine's predicament brings to mind the lament of 19th-century Mexican President Porfirio Diaz: "Poor Mexico - so far from God, so close to the United States." A smaller country located next to a larger and more powerful one almost inevitably has to make adjustments in deference to the needs - or greed - of its neighbor. In the international arena, as Ukrainians can attest, geography is often destiny.

For centuries, their land has been the object of struggle among European powers. Why? Because of its location. "Ukraine" means "borderland," and nearby countries covet influence and control because its broad steppes can serve so well as a route for armies bent on conquest.

While many people in Ukraine want a close association with the European Union, writes Robert D. Kaplan in Time, "the dictates of geography make it nearly impossible for that nation to reorient itself entirely toward the West."

Russia, he notes, "remains a sprawling and insecure land power that has enjoyed no cartographic impediments to invasion from French, Germans, Swedes, Lithuanians and Poles over the course of its history." So Russia is always bound to take an outsized interest in what happens in Ukraine.

U.S. citizens, who revere the Monroe Doctrine for its insistence that European countries not further meddle in North and South America, can understand Moscow's impulse without excusing Putin's brutal indulgence of it. Any major power, democratic or authoritarian, wants to exercise as much control as possible over events in its neighborhood.

Ukraine's proximity to Russia not only brings it unwanted attention from Putin but creates a big obstacle to any Western power that might contemplate direct intervention there. In a war with the West, a Russia with influence in Ukraine would have huge advantages conferred by, yes, geography - including short supply lines, easy access by land for ground troops and extensive familiarity with the people and terrain.

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the wave of democratization that washed over much of the globe in the ensuing years lulled many Westerners into thinking the age of cold, brutal power politics was past. Kaplan writes about the naivete of those who came to see "technology as the great democratizer" and "the niceties of international law" as more powerful forces than "territory and the bonds of blood that go with it."

But one thing about the world order has not changed: Countries are still on their own to protect their security. If they are attacked, invaded or disrupted by internal coup, they can't be sure anyone will intervene to restore the status quo ante.

So they have strong reasons to try to exert control over neighboring areas and countries. Putin feared the fall of an autocrat in Kiev might infect his own people with rebellion. He also worried that someday, Ukraine might join NATO, the Western alliance founded to block Soviet - read Russian - aggression. So he has undertaken to dismember and intimidate Ukraine.

China offers another example of the perils of living next door to a major power with dreams of regional dominance. Its desire to control nearby islands that are also claimed by Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam is a chronic source of friction in the region.

Why does Beijing care so much about these islands, many of them uninhabited? For the oldest reason of all - because they are near. Also because they sit astride shipping lanes that China regards as important in commercial amd military terms. Small bits of territory like these can be important enough to bring countries to war.

That's nothing new. The challenge for the United States and its allies is to make sure they have the military and economic weapons they need to prevent large nations from bullying and abusing countries that are smaller and weaker.

As the Ukraine crisis attests, that obligation is not always easy. But as Ukraine also attests, it is not obsolete.